


Art. Hope. Love. Dreams.

by lacat123



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Art, Basically Just Pretty and Flowery Words, Beautiful Thoughts, Castiel (Supernatural) is Bad at Feelings, Character Study, Drabble, Dreams, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, Feelings, Gen, Hope, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, I Don't Even Know, Love, No Plot/Plotless, Or At Least Similar in Style, Poetry, Quote based, Why Did I Write This?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-21 22:06:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17650772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lacat123/pseuds/lacat123
Summary: "Well, perhaps I've been down here with them for too long. There's seemingly nothing but chaos. But not all bad comes from it. Art. Hope. Love. Dreams."Four short drabbles imagining how Cas learned to understand these things, and his first contact with them. Spoiler: it's the Winchesters.





	Art. Hope. Love. Dreams.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y'all. So basically, this is just what I imagine would lead Cas to understanding these human things. Spoiler: it's the Winchesters. 
> 
> No warnings. Just a short and sweet story.

"Well, perhaps I've been down here with them for too long. There's seemingly nothing but chaos. But not all bad comes from it. Art. Hope. Love. Dreams."

"But those are human things?"

"Yes."

\- Castiel, Season Ten Episode One

 

_Art._

He had seen the famous painters paint masterpieces beloved for centuries. He had heard as composers wrote pieces that were said to move human's heart and soul to tears. He had read the books that came from author's imaginations. But he had never understood. 

To him, they were simply pigment on canvas. Stills of women putting on shoes. They were simply harmonies and chords and words, put together to create a melody. They were simply fiction, sentences spread on page after page after page of nothing.

They didn't affect him, didn't move him. Not like humans. 

Then again, he wasn't human. He was more powerful, holier, than any human could hope to achieve. But then why couldn't he feel? Why couldn't tears come to his eyes and slide down his face as he listened to music? Wasn't that truly the most heavenly thing?

But the Winchesters, they had showed him everything. 

They showed him how a painting could bring feelings of joy, sadness. Portraits of a man over the years didn't just show his decline from reality; it was a symphony of emotions. Sadness at the way he slowly lost his mind. Anger at how such a talent had lost the ability to express his true calling, only to succumb to the demons of his imagination. Emotions which swirled just as much as the paint in a man's soul when they looked upon art.

Then they showed him music. Songs which played from their car radio, singing contests as they rode upon a dusty highway in the middle of nowhere. They weren't just words strung together in musical harmony; it was a whirlwind of memories. Each song brought forth a different one, pulling moments of happiness, sadness, anger, from the depths. Humans didn't listen for the notes themselves, nor the beauty of the singing. They did it to feel connected to their past, to loved ones lost and gained. They did it to bring back a fragment of a shard of a memory back to the world. To relive it just once more. 

And they showed him literature; books, myths. The way how authors could create entire worlds from a pen and paper. How these worlds could provide an escape from reality. A way to explain how life began. Words that flowed only from the imagination of its creator, to give a soul to something that has no life. 

And then he had understood. Art wasn't about the thing itself; it was about the emotions that it brought, the memories that came to life, the worlds it created. It was about showing that humans weren't mindless machines created by Him. They had evolved, grown better, and shown themselves to be enlightened. That they could touch each other's souls in ways only angels could dream. 

 

_Hope._

Hope was interesting thing. Some humans would ascribe their hope to angels, or God, not realizing that He doesn't care. He had never understood: why believe in something that doesn't help you, that you can't even confirm exists? 

Their belief had started wars, massacres, genocides, and for what? The hope that something better would come, and that they should spend their short time on earth thinking about the time after?

He had always shunned hope, belief. What did he have to believe in? His Father, gone for a millennia? His brothers, who were constantly fighting between factions? He had had no one to put his hope into.

Until the Winchesters. 

He had seen from the beginning their belief in each other. The way they would believe that the other would never abandon them. That hope was the only reason for why they survived. 

They had put there hope in him. Despite letting them down time and time again, they still believed he could do the right thing. They still believed he was good. 

And despite all his failings, they had stuck by him. Supported him when he thought he was alone and lost and forgotten. When he himself had felt the last of his own hope fade away into nothing, they were there to catch him. 

So he used to call hope useless, even idiotic. But now? Now he understands. It gives humans a way to move on, a way to carry through their lives without knowing for certain why they are doing it. 

It gives them something to believe in. 

 

_Dreams_

He had been inside Dean's dreams before. Seen what he most wanted but could never have. An "apple pie life". A "white picket fence". He would never admit it, but that's what his unconscious most desires. 

So as he sleeps, that's where he goes. 

As an angel, before falling, these had seemed frivolous. Unnecessary. Why would their minds build a beautiful life for them to go to as they sleep, but allow them to wake and carry on with whatever hell they were living through? 

But after, when he was human and truly experienced dreams? That was when he understood. They were an escape, a wall that their minds built to give them purpose. And without purpose, why go through life? 

In Dean's dreams, he sees a woman and children and a house and a job. He sees everything he aspires to have but can't in this harsh reality. His heart knows that he wishes all these things to come true, but his mind compels him to be self-less, to save the world. 

So for him, sleep is an escape. A perfect life that he can go to when his real one becomes too much. And it gives him a reason to continue, a goal. That maybe after this is all over and the world no longer needs saving, he can go home to his little house in Small Town, U.S.A, and just live his very own dream. 

 

_Love_

Angels don't feel. They don't act with emotion or compassion. They simply follow orders that another has given. 

He was like that, thousands of years ago. Without feeling or conscious thought. His family was also his commanders, his brothers fellow soldiers. There wasn't any happiness. But with that came no sorrow. 

He was sent down to hell. An honor, they had told him, to be chosen for such an important task as saving the Righteous Man. So he had followed it, and felt the hellfire lick his wings and singe his feathers. All for the sake of orders. 

And then the years had gone by. Years with Sam and Dean and the dawn of a new era, one without the ever-looming threat of an apocalypse over them. He had been showed so many things he thought he would never experience, or understand, in his time away from Heaven. But the one that surprised him the most was love. 

Sam threw himself into the cage. For Dean. For him. He chose endless torture at the hands of the Devil instead of those he cares about getting hurt. That was when he truly understood. That love wasn't about joy or happiness, although it brought those things. Love was about sacrifice. 

So he had spread his wings, still burned from his last trip to Hell, and flown once again into that pit. But this time, he wasn't following orders. Wasn't just listening a superior tell him what to do. 

He had decided to choose love, and with it, sacrifice. Because in that moment, he had felt love. For the Winchesters, for humanity. Even for his brothers and sisters. 

Because he had finally understood what it meant to be human. 

He finally understood.

**Author's Note:**

> So I don't know how I feel about this. Is it horrible? Beautiful? I guess I'm just thinking of it as my first attempts at writing something not based in reality, if you get my gist. 
> 
> Sorry, it's late. I don't know what I'm writing. Enjoy your day or night!


End file.
